Europe

What Is Putin’s ‘New Russia’?

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

April 18, 2014

MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, appearing cool and confident on national television during a four-hour question-and-answer show on Thursday, referred repeatedly to southeastern Ukraine as “New Russia,” a historical term for the area north of the Black Sea that the Russian empire conquered in the 1700s. “God knows” why the region became part of Ukraine in the 1920s, he said in response to a questioner, a strong signal that he would gladly correct that error.

Mr. Putin’s use of the term “Novorossiya,” which he had not emphasized previously, suggested that he was replicating, with regard to eastern Ukraine, Russia’s assertions of historical ties to Crimea before it occupied and annexed the peninsula.

Novorossiya generally refers to a broad area of Ukraine, stretching from what is now the border of Moldova in the west to the Russian border in the east, and including Donetsk, the port city of Odessa to the south, and the industrial center of Dnipropetrovsk to the north. It was conquered in the late 18th century by Catherine the Great, who installed Prince Grigory Potemkin to lead the colonization of the lands.

The prince earned fame as the architect of the Potemkin village, a town of brightly painted facades and happy people erected to deceive visiting officials and dignitaries. Critics have accused Mr. Putin of employing a similar sleight of hand in the invasion of Crimea and the supposedly spontaneous pro-Russian uprising in eastern Ukraine.

On Thursday, Mr. Putin repeated his assertion that he felt an obligation to protect ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, where they are a large minority of the population. “We must do everything to help these people to protect their rights and independently determine their own destiny,” he said.

“The question is to ensure the rights and interests of the Russian southeast,” he added. “It’s New Russia. Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Odessa were not part of Ukraine in czarist times; they were transferred in 1920. Why? God knows. Then, for various reasons, these areas were gone, and the people stayed there. We need to encourage them to find a solution.”